The present invention relates to the field of color projection system. In particular, the present invention provides a reduced form factor projection system.
Advances in projection technology have decreased the physical size of projection systems, or more commonly, the form factor of projection systems. For example, a projection system utilizing microelectromechanical (MEMS) technology, such as digital micromirror devices (DMD(trademark)) or digital light processing (DLP) methods may have a relatively small form factor. However, utilization of MEMS technology can be costly because of the technical requirements associated with such small mechanical devices that may range in size of 14 square micrometers (i.e., manufacturing and controlling such small mechanical objects that may be arranged in an array of 750 000 micro mirrors may be cost prohibitive).
A technology utilized to address some of the issues associated with MEMS technology is the liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology. The LCOS technology integrates liquid crystal technology and a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) to result in a reflective projection system that offers high resolution, low cost, scalable to small sizes, and relatively easy to manufacture. However, in a projection system utilizing LCOS technology, sophisticated light management devices are employed, which may adversely affect the form factor of the projection system.
For example, a light management device may operate to process light, which may involve separating light into its various color components, polarizing, and recombining the various color components to form an appropriate image. An example of light management device, which may be referred to as an architecture, suitable for the LCOS projection system may be a ColorQuad(trademark) architecture utilizing ColorSelect(trademark) polarization filter technology by Colorlink, Inc. of Boulder, Colo.
The ColorQuad(trademark) architecture selectively rotates the polarization of one color relative to its complement. Utilizing the ColorSelect(trademark) polarization filter technology, including polarizing beamsplitter (PBS) cubes, the ColorQuad(trademark) architecture facilitates high contrast displays by providing polarization integrity of color separation and recombination. Thus, projection systems that can improve over the prior art in utilizing LCOS technology while reducing the form factor are desired.